


Tracks in Time

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [43]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:26:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anomaly opens, leading to a problematic incursion of the present into the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Professor Nick Cutter glanced around the lecture theatre, surprised by the size of the turnout for a Saturday morning. The Anomaly Project was playing havoc with his teaching schedules, and today was intended as a peace-offering to placate the Dean. A large research grant, that Lester had somehow wrangled out of the depths of the Home Office budget, would hopefully set the seal on his attempts to ingratiate himself with the Faculty again, before any unfortunate questions were asked about his commitment to his career.

Connor Temple slid into the back row, clutching his laptop and looking no more than half awake. This wasn’t an uncommon look around the campus of the Central Metropolitan University on a Saturday morning, although the title of this talk, Tracking Dinosaurs, seemed to have brought a full house, even at a weekend.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” smiled Cutter. “You all look remarkably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for what is undoubtedly the morning after the night before. Well, although Europe can’t actually lay claim to the world’s oldest vertebrate trackway – we have to hand that distinction over to our colleagues in Australia – we can, quite justifiably boast about what we believe to be the oldest trackway of any terrestrial animal with legs. Not a bad claim to fame for an island as small as ours.”

He clicked on the first slide, a map of Great Britain, with an arrow pointing to the Lake District. “Let me take you back in time around 450 million years, to the Ordovician.” A picture of a tiny trail of meandering footprints, with a scale showing them to be only about 0.5 cm apart, came up on the screen, complete with a small insert, a drawing of a creature that bore a remarkable resemblance to a wood louse.

The trails looped around themselves, crisscrossing randomly. “Diplichnites.”

At the back, Connor started tapping details into his creature database.

* * * * *

Some three hundred miles north, Ryan and Stephen left the county of Cumbria behind after a brief, but enjoyable, sojourn at the home of the soldier’s ex-wife. The visit had gone well; they’d spent three days going for long walks with Vicky, Ryan’s daughter, or watching her ride her ponies, in between being dragged off to visit various tourist attractions.

Ryan had been amused to discover that Stephen had enjoyed himself almost as much as Vicky had done at the Beatrix Potter exhibition. He just wondered how his lover was going to react to the Peter Rabbit pillowcases Ryan had bought him for his birthday, after Stephen had loudly declared he’d been deprived of stuff like that as a kid.

The traffic was light, and if they continued to make good time, they’d be at the Mitchell’s hotel in the Forest of Dean by early afternoon, to enable Ryan to take over command of academic-sitting duties from his fellow captain, Joel Stringer. He’d been told that Cutter was teaching today, but was expected down by tonight, to take another look at the Permian Anomaly, which still persisted in re-opening at depressingly regular intervals.

* * * * *

“And no, I am not suggesting that you attempt to emulate some of Buckland’s more outlandish experiments,” said Nick, with a grin at his audience. “I imagine the R.S.P.C.A. would almost certainly have something to say about making tortoises, or indeed any other unfortunate chelonian, endangered species or not, walk across pastry dough, even if you did manage to get the consistency right. Something that Buckland himself failed to do on one celebrated occasion, when the poor wee buggers stuck so fast to his pie crust that they apparently had to be prised up with half a pound of dough sticking to each foot. And knowing that old eccentric, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he’d actually baked a couple of tortoise pies later, just to see what they tasted like.”

A few of the students grimaced. The rest laughed. And Nick continued with his discourse on the early identification of fossil trackways.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Jon Lyle lazed comfortably in the back of the car, letting the conversation flow around him, contributing the odd remark, but otherwise happy just to chill out.

He’d woken up with the dawn as usual, and had dozed for a while, reluctant to disturb his still-sleeping lover. Lester had been tired the previous night, blaming it on a combination of two days spent in the company of insufferable bureaucrats in Brussels, followed by a long drive down to Somerset to spend a long weekend in the cottage he owned jointly with his brother on the Mendip Hills.

For the first time in two months, Lester had booked a few days off work, and Lyle was hoping that the time away from the Anomaly Project would do his lover some good. Lester had spent the last few weeks very heavily mired in the arrangements for the move to their new headquarters, often working late into the night.

They’d arranged a day’s caving in Wales for Saturday, then intended to spend Sunday in bed, engaged in more leisurely pursuits, but it had rapidly become obvious that Lester was too knackered for the trip they’d planned. Lyle hadn’t been convinced Lester would manage the walk up the hill to Top Entrance, let alone struggle through the long, tight crawl out of Cwm Dwr.

Lyle had left him lounging in bed, back at the cottage, tucked up with a mug of tea and a book, and the promise of a shag later.

The soldier had left his own car at Aust services on the M4 just west of Bristol, and had been picked up in a Range Rover driven by Finn, with Ditzy and Blade for company.

“Are you sure your leg’s up to this, mate?” he asked, as the talk turned to their plans for the trip. “We can always abandon the idea of coming out of Cwm Dwr and head down for One, instead. It won’t take much longer.”

Blade glanced over his shoulder, green eyes shining with amusement. “My leg’s fine. What about yours? Are you sure you aren’t getting soft in your old age, Jon?”

“I only had a minor run-in with a car,” Lyle snorted, ignoring the fact that his so-called minor incident had left him with bad bruising from hip to knee which had necessitated several days off work, much to his irritation. “I’m not the one who had my leg nearly chewed off by something that didn’t know the meaning of the word extinct. Just don’t start whining for your Gran and demanding a carry.”

“Fuck off,” muttered Blade companionably, flipping the lieutenant the finger over his shoulder.

* * * * *

Sir James Lester turned over in bed, feeling relaxed and lazy and not in the least bit sorry to have missed a caving trip that had all the hallmarks of turning into a route-march. Lyle had sworn blind it was going to be nothing more than a gentle amble to test Blade’s injured leg, before he got signed back on for active anomaly duty, but Lester hadn’t been convinced.

He’d had plenty of experience of his lover’s idea of a nice gentle trip, including a six hour marathon to the furthest reaches of Eastwater three weeks ago. It had been a good trip, but it had left Lester unable to move without unseemly yelping for at least two days. A predicament which Cutter and the rest of the bloody Scooby Gang had found all too amusing. Even the normally solicitous Claudia Brown had indulged in the occasional snigger at his expense.

It was a grey, overcast day. Perfect for staying in bed all morning, followed by a short walk up to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn for lunch. Then, if Lyle was really lucky, he’d spend the afternoon cooking a slow-roasted lamb shank for dinner, complete with braised red cabbage and all the trimmings. Then he’d insist on an evening being shagged senseless, just the way his lover had promised.

Almost of its own volition, his cock twitched. Lester ran a hand down over his stomach, his fingers bringing himself to full hardness in a matter of moments. He glanced over at the bedside clock. Nine o’clock. They’d be on the motorway by now, but Lyle had said one of the others was going to be driving.

With his right hand still gently but firmly stroking his cock, Lester flicked open the cover of his mobile phone with his left, and hit speed dial.

“Jon?”

Lyle answered with an amused, “Hi, honey, missing me already?”

“Who needs you when I’ve got myself for company?” purred Lester, putting enough twist into his grip to make himself gasp. “You forgot to leave me your call out time.”

* * * * *

“Depends on how slow Blade is,” grinned Lyle, wondering if he’d correctly interpreted the muffled gasp he’d just heard. “We’ll put eight o’clock on the board, but if he takes that long, and makes me miss dinner, I’ll break the idle bastard’s good leg.”

He did a quick mental calculation. They’d be at Penwyllt by ten thirty, and underground by eleven if they jogged up the hill. Out by three, barring accidents, away by four at the latest, so he should be back no later than seven at the absolute outside, and …. was Sir James Lester really doing what Lyle thought he was doing? Lyle’s own cock sprang to attention at the mere thought of his normally decorous boyfriend playing with himself while they were talking.

Lyle shot a quick glance sideways at his companion in the backseat, but Ditzy had his eyes closed, listening through an earpiece to his own iPod. It was no secret that the medic loathed Finn’s taste in music, which was currently blaring out at a high enough volume to drown out any noises from Lyle’s phone.

“So what are you going to be doing, now you’ve woken up, you lazy sod?” he asked, unable to resist rising to the bait.

* * * * *

Lester chuckled, and his hand continued its work. He was rock hard now and leaking. And enjoying himself hugely. God, Jon was easy to wind up. He’d bet any money the soldier was tugging surreptitiously at his jeans by now, and shuffling in his seat.

He ran well-practised fingers up and down his dick, alternating hard, fast strokes with slow, lingering ones.

“What route are you taking?” he asked, in the most conversational tone he could muster, knowing full well that Lyle’s imagination would by now be working overtime.

He heard the soldier swallow hard, before Lyle started to say that they were going to head straight for Maypole Inlet and the streamway.

Enjoying the sound of his lover’s voice, James Lester stroked himself harder and began to wonder whether he could manage to keep the phone pressed against his ear whilst he worked the fingers of his other hand into his arse. Regretfully, he decided the phone would almost certainly end up under the bed if he tried that trick. He’d have to wait for that until he got into the shower.

He knew that Lyle was now spinning out his end of the conversation, no doubt in the hope of hearing him come, as his boyfriend started to describe in intricate, albeit somewhat disjointed detail, the route he intended out through the area of the Cwm Dwr boulder-choke.

“Getting close, darling,” Lester breathed. “Are you hard, Jon?”

* * * * *

“Yes,” snapped Lyle. “But don’t mind me, sweetie, you carry on, why don’t you?” A moment later, he clicked his tongue in annoyance, “Gonna lose you in a minute, we’re approaching the tunnel. I’ll call you back later.” When you’ve come all over your own frigging hand and I’ve lost this fuckin’ hard-on, thought the soldier, sourly.

Sir James Lester was going to get his arse tanned for this stunt later. And that thought wasn’t helping either! Lyle wriggled in his seat belt, hoping he wasn’t starting to blush.

Finn flicked the headlights on as the vehicle approached the Brynglas Tunnel on the M4. The traffic was slowing up slightly, as it always did. The tunnel was a bottleneck at the best of times, and affected traffic flow in even the lightest of conditions. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, Finn stamped on the brakes as the lorry in front of him started to career out of control, slamming into the sloping side of the tunnel, sparks flying from the impact.

Lyle was thrown forwards against his seat belt. “What the fuck….” His erection subsided in an instant, but he never got the chance to finish the sentence.

The Range Rover impacted into something, with a sickening crunch. Another vehicle piled into them from behind, the sound of metal twisting and breaking unnaturally loud in the silence that followed the crash.

Then the screaming started.


	2. Chapter 2

“Jesus H. Christ,” wheezed Ditzy. “Nice driving, Finn. What part of the tunnel wall didn’t you see, mate?” He coughed, then demanded, “Sit rep, guys? Jon?”

Lyle groaned, and reached around to try to undo his seat belt. “Alive.”

“Blade?”

“Yeah.”

“Finn?”

A muffled curse came from what appeared to be the depth of the driver’s air-bag. Blade reached over, a knife already in his hand, and started to help Finn disentangle himself.

In less than a minute, the four soldiers were out of the vehicle and staring around them at the wreckage of one lorry, a large van and numerous cars. Already the air smelt of petrol and oil.

Lyle’s chest hurt where the seat-belt had restrained him, and he could see that Blade was limping badly, off the same leg that he’d previously injured. Finn had a trickle of blood out of the side of his mouth, probably from a bitten or split lip, but he seemed otherwise unhurt, as was the medic, by the look of things. Lyle leaned against the car for a moment, forcing his breathing under control, as he looked around and tried to make sense out of the chaotic scene around him.

The screaming continued, then he heard Finn say, “Oh fucking hell, it really isn’t our day, boss.”

“I’ve had better,” acknowledged Lyle, pushing himself off the Range Rover and starting to move towards the passenger door of the car that had rear-ended them. The faster they got people moving out of the tunnel, the better.

“Boss!” Finn’s voice held a note of urgency this time, which stopped the lieutenant in his tracks. “That’s not what I meant. Look down there!”

Lyle started down the tunnel, past the wreckage, past injured and bloody people already starting to drag themselves out of other vehicles. There, about 30 metres ahead, hanging in the middle of the tunnel, like a broken Hall of Mirrors, was an anomaly.

“Oh, bollocks,” grimaced the lieutenant. “Ditz, do what you can for the injured. Blade, Finn, secure that fucker and make sure no-one goes through. I’m going to call this one in, then I’ll be back.”

His own recently injured leg had also been jarred in the crash, but Lyle ignored the pain and started to jog back out to daylight, reaching into his pocket for his phone.

“Help me!” groaned a woman, struggling to drag herself free of her car.

A quick glance told the soldier that she could wait, and he swerved around her, ignoring her plaintive cries.

Traffic had already backed up along the motorway, horns blaring and hazard lights flashing. Several people were talking frantically into mobile phones. Hopefully calling the emergency services, but for all Lyle knew, they could just as easily be phoning home. People were like that.

His first call was 999. The operator took the details and told him help would be on the way. Lyle ended the call quickly and pressed a familiar speed-dial.

Lester answered quickly, his voice low and teasing. “Hello, darling …”

“James?” Lyle was suddenly conscious that there was a slight tremor in his own voice which he ruthlessly quashed. “We’ve got a problem in the Brynglass Tunnel. Tell Stringer to get his arse over here asap. We’ve got a multi-car pile up caused by an anomaly…. Yes, a fucking anomaly…. Oh shit is right. I’m fine, so are the others, but we need back up and we need it fast. I’ll call you when I know more, love …. Yes, I’ll take care. Don’t I always?” With that, Lyle ended the call and started back towards the tunnel.

A woman in her late thirties fell into step beside him, a first aid kit held firmly in one hand. “I’m a nurse,” she said, as though walking back into a situation like that, rather than away from it needed an explanation.

“Army,” said Lyle. “One of my guys is an EMT.”

The woman nodded, stopping to take a quick look into the window of a car where one of the occupants was screaming hysterically. “Someone will be with you soon,” she said, straightening up and remarking to Lyle, “Not much wrong with her if she can yell like that. It’s the ones who aren’t yelling you need to check first.”

Lyle grinned. She’d get on fine with Ditzy.

Several people were starting to make their way out of the tunnel, wearing the vacant look of human beings in shock, but they were moving under their own steam, so all they got from Lyle and his companion was an approving nod.

“Oh shit,” the woman’s voice was quiet, and held a note of resignation. On one side of the tunnel, a small body lay on the floor, covered in blood, head at an unnatural angle. Not moving. “Why the fuck won’t people strap their kids in properly?” She bent down then, a moment later, shook her head.

Lyle stared at her helplessly and she shrugged, moving on to the nearby car, a people-carrier with a shattered windscreen, from which the sound of sobbing could be heard.

“I need to check something, ma’am,” said Lyle, admiring the woman’s composure. “Do you want my guy back here?”

She sighed. “He’ll have enough on his hands wherever he is, I imagine. If you can get people out and moving, do it. Otherwise, leave them where they are until the paramedics get here.”

Lyle nodded, and kept moving. The closer he got to the anomaly, the more the tunnel started to resemble the scene of a road-side bomb. He saw Ditzy leaning into the front of a transit van, talking in the sort of calming voice he usually reserved for animals, small children and the occasional highly-strung scientist.

An articulated lorry was jack-knifed across the carriageway, almost blocking access to the anomaly from one side. A heated babble of voices greeted Lyle as he got closer, one of them Finn’s.

“No you fucking well don’t, mate,” the soldier was saying, in his ‘don’t mess with me voice’. “If you want to do something useful, go and help people, don’t hang around here taking fucking snap-shots.”

“Someone went into that thing and didn’t come out on the other side!”

“You’re concussed,” declared Finn.

Lyle elbowed his way past the man, knocking the camera out of his hand and stamping on it. “Sorry about that. Send me the bill. Now do something useful and go and help someone” The man glared at him and opened his mouth to argue. Lyle put both hands on his shoulders, turned him around and gave him a shove. “That wasn’t a fucking request, mate, it was an order. People are hurt back there. Go help them!”

Running a hand through greasy black hair and shooting Lyle a venomous glare, the man moved off, muttering.

“Thanks, boss. I was about to deck the fucker. He saw Blade go through and wanted to follow him.”

“I told you to secure the fucking thing, not go rubber-necking!”

By way of an answer, Finn waved a hand down at the asphalt on the floor of the tunnel, where a set of enormous skid-marks headed straight at the flickering light surrounding the rip in time …. and did not continue on the other side.

“Oh fuck, it really isn’t our day, is it?” groaned Lyle. “How many?”

“According to Blade, three cars and a lorry.”

The lieutenant swiped a hand through his hair. “I’ve told Lester to call Stringer, but we’re on our own for the moment.”

Finn nodded. “You go through. I’ll make sure you don’t get company unless you want it.”

Lyle nodded, and stepped through, with that sickening lurch of his stomach which always accompanied a trip through an anomaly. Heat hit him immediately and he stopped dead, blinking in the sudden glare of sunlight. Sweat sprung out on his body, and he drew warm air into his lungs with a gasp at the sight spread out in front of him.

A wide expanse of water sparkled in the sunlight. A lake, stretching as far as the eye could see, surrounded by a flat expanse of dried mud. Horsetail ferns rose up out of the ground, and in the distance he could see a tall stand of some sort of pine trees. All around him, in the mud and sand of the shore, he could see tracks left by creatures that had come down to the water to drink. Some small prints, no bigger than a horse’s hoof, some huge, larger than the biggest elephant’s foot.

Lyle scanned the area for immediate threats. He could see animals, but they mostly seemed to be in the distance; huge sauropods, with massive bodies and improbably long necks, balanced by equally long tails. There was also a herd of what looked like some kind of stegosaurus, large plates standing stiffly up on either side of their spines, grouped tightly together, possibly defensively, which might indicate the presence of predators. He vaguely remembered Cutter saying their sort was mostly harmless, but he still regretted the lack of a weapon, especially if there might be meat-eaters in the vicinity of the veggies.

His eyes fell with shock on the sight of an enormous tanker, lying on its side in the soft ground, with two damaged cars, one upside down, a short way in front of the cab, while the other had come to rest a few metres further on. He could see Blade by the nearest car, doing his best to cut one of the occupants free from a seat belt. A large man, with blood running down his head, was wandering around in circles next to him, muttering, “Oh my God, oh my God ….”

A third car had gone even further down the slope and come to rest in the mud at the edge of the lake.

The seat-belt parted under Blade’s ministrations and the soldier started to haul a woman out of the car. Lyle ran down the slight slope to his aid, and together they half-dragged, half-carried her away from the wreck. Another body hung in the straps of the seatbelt, ominously still, in the front passenger seat.

“Jesus Christ!” panted Lyle. “Cutter’s going to go apeshit! We’ll never manage to get this lot hauled out of here before it closes.”

Blade shrugged, then his green eyes slid past Lyle and froze in horror. “Fuck!” he breathed, almost reverently. “We need to get out of here, boss! I’ll take her, you grab matey over there.”

Lyle turned, and was met by a scene straight out of Jurassic Park. A huge herd of what looked like diplodocus was lumbering towards them along the lakeshore, seemingly oblivious to what lay in their path. When something was that fucking big, Lyle supposed, there wasn’t much that worried it. But they sure as hell worried him. Blade was right; they needed to get the two people that were already free of the wreckage out of here, and fast.

The other casualties would have to wait.

Then, to Lyle’s utter horror, the anomaly started to blink and shimmer more faintly than before. The fucking thing was fading.


	3. Chapter 3

The scene of a major road traffic accident had never before been so welcome.

The fat man sank down onto the floor of the tunnel, his litany of ‘Oh God’ showing no sign of abating.

Blade went down on one knee, depositing the woman on the ground as gently as he could manage.

Lyle stared at the broken light as it flickered for a final time and winked out of existence, taking with it several other injured, or dead, people and a tanker containing God only knew what.

Oh no, this really wasn’t one of their better days. But it could have been worse, they could have been the ones trapped on the other side.

Two hours later, a good deal of the wreckage had been moved out of the tunnel. Lester had arrived in person and had taken charge of the official side of things, and much to Lyle’s relief, Stringer had turned up with enough weaponry, and other kit, to win a minor Balkan war and had secured a perimeter around the anomaly site.

Cutter, Connor and Abby were on their way, and he’d had an ETA from Ryan and Hart of within the next half an hour. The anomaly had winked back into existence once, while they’d been waiting, but it had faded again almost immediately. They’d encountered this sort before, in the Forest of Dean, and they scared Lyle silly. It was impossible to predict how long the sods would remain open for, and with people trapped on the other side, the temptation for the rescuers to go back through was enormous, even if they didn’t know how long it would remain in existence.

Lester had settled the arguments by specifically forbidding any further forays into the past until Cutter arrived, bringing with him the spare monitoring kit.

“They could be dead by now,” Lyle muttered, staring into the soft, artificial light of the tunnel.

“Yes, they could,” acknowledged Lester, brushing the back of the soldier’s hand with his own. “If it comes back, and if Temple says the magnetic field is strong enough, you can go back through. Until then, you wait, Jon. Same as the rest of us.”

Lyle grunted, but didn’t argue. The soldier knew superior force when he encountered it, and the look in Lester’s eyes brooked no argument. Lyle shifted position, taking the weight off his aching leg, and gripped the rifle in his arms slightly harder, comforted by the familiar feel of the metal in his hands.

He was still standing there, staring at nothing, when the first shimmer of magnetically charged air brought him up straight. He blinked once, to clear his vision, and was looking straight at the anomaly when it burst back into life.

The soldier’s yell echoed down the tunnel.

* * * * *

“It’s a strong field,” confirmed Connor.

Lester ignored Lyle’s look of impatience and glanced over at Cutter. “It’s your call, Professor.”

“We wait ten minutes,” said the Scotsman, his eyes riveted to the dancing splinters of time. “If it’s still as strong as this by then, it’s worth the risk. Lyle, tell Captain Stringer I want his men ready to go in.”

Lyle nodded, and went to do his bidding.

Lester stared over Connor’s shoulder, watching the needle on the dial hover somewhere near the top of the scale, indicating that the anomaly was remaining strong.

Ten interminably slow minutes crawled by. When the needle showed no sign of dropping, Cutter looked up and met Stringer’s eyes. “Secure the other side of the anomaly, Captain, nothing more. Then tell me what the hell is going on through there. Lyle, you’ve already been through. Tell me if it’s the same.”

Lester watched with approval. It had taken long enough to train Cutter that the ‘let’s all pile through’ approach was not necessarily the best, but the Eccentric Academic seemed to have finally learnt the meaning of the word caution.

At his side, Cutter radiated tension.

After what seemed like an age, but in reality was no more than two minutes, Lyle appeared, coming back through anomaly at a run. “It’s the same place,” he reported. “The tanker’s been shifted by something big. It was on its side when I first saw it, it’s upright again now. One car is still upside down. There’s one body in there: dead. The other’s the right way up and I could hear screaming. The one on the edge of the water had been stamped on, and there are big bastards everywhere.” In response to the look on Cutter’s face, the Special Forces lieutenant hastily amended the description to, “Diplodocus, I think. Or something bloody similar. There’s a huge herd of them by the lake, drinking. They’re everywhere.”

“Marvellous, just marvellous,” muttered Lester. “Cutter?”

“I’m going in,” and with that, Cutter stepped forwards, and into the anomaly without a backward glance.

Lester met his lover’s eyes and gave a brief nod. “Report back in no more than another ten minutes, Jon. And no heroics.”

The lieutenant nodded and followed Cutter, rifle held ready. Lester clenched his hands and said nothing.

At his side, he heard Finn say into his radio, “The captain’s here? Yeah, send him in.”

Lester looked around and saw Ryan and Hart arriving at a run. “Captain Stringer has taken a team through,” supplied Lester, succinctly. “Lyle is with Cutter. As far as we can tell, it’s intermittent. This is its third appearance. The second one lasted no more than a minute. This one is stronger. We have a tanker and three cars on the other side, and a herd of diplodocus.”

It took a lot to surprise Ryan, but the soldier’s jaw dropped slightly at that summary. “Civilian casualties?”

“Almost certainly,” said Lester, wiping sweating hands on his jeans. “I’m expecting a report in less than five minutes, gentlemen, which should give you sufficient time to kit up. I believe big guns may well be the order of the day. I’d also appreciate it if someone would make sure the second medical team is standing by. I imagine Lieutenant Owen will be requiring their services.”

Lyle’s report, when it arrived, took the classic form of first the good news, then the bad news. “It’s a milk container,” said the lieutenant, relief showing in his hazel eyes. “The driver’s dead. The person in the first car is definitely dead. There were four people in the second one. One of them is trapped by the leg. One’s dead. We can’t get close enough to the third car to get a sit rep.”

“You said one car had four people. What about the other two?” demanded Lester, as Lyle hesitated.

“Gone off somewhere,” replied the soldier. “We need your tracking skills,” he told Stephen. “It’s fucking chaos out there, footprints everywhere. Ditz reckons they’re concussed or in shock. He says you often get crash victims wandering off, just not usually in the middle of a herd of diplodocus.”

“Oh dear God,” breathed Lester. “Connor, what are those readings like?”

“Stable,” said the student, eyes fixed on the display. “If anything, it’s slightly stronger. I’d say it’s good for a while yet.”

“Define a while!” snapped Lester, narrowly beating Ryan to the question.

“Half an hour, maybe more,” hazarded Connor. “I’ll tell you as soon as it starts to fade. Just don’t go too far.”

“You heard him, gentleman,” said Lester. “Do your best, but no unnecessary risks, understand?”

The three men disappeared into the anomaly, leaving Lester staring impotently at the source of the trouble, which glittered maliciously in the dust haze left behind by the clean-up operation. Behind him, he could hear the noise of wrecked cars being towed away. The articulated lorry still lay in place, its bulk creating a natural barrier on one side to anything of any size which might to try and come through. The timber it had been carrying lay strewn on the tarmac.

Connor settled himself down on a piece of wood and continued to stare at his monitoring device, making notes on a palm-top, and occasionally muttering to himself. Abby stood behind him, staring intently over his shoulder.

Lester found himself constantly demanding updates on the readings until, eventually, Finn took pity on the harassed student and said, “Sir, why don’t you take a look at what’s going on for yourself? We’ll call you back if you’re needed here.”

Excitement flared in Lester’s stomach at the suggestion. He’d read the reports, seen the photographs, got the grey hairs, but he’d never actually stepped through one of these things into the past.

Connor looked up and nodded. “Tell them from me it’s holding up nicely this time. These readings are good. I’d say they might have an hour now.”

Taking a deep breath, James Lester took a step towards the anomaly. Finn caught his eye and grinned reassuringly. Lester sucked in a second lungful of tainted air, which still reeked of petrol and fire-retardant foam, and stepped into the past, instinctively closing his eyes against the brightness surrounding him.

The ground felt softer underfoot and heat enveloped him, making it feel like he’d walked into a sauna. His astonished eyes took in the scene by the lakeside. A tanker, front wheels deeply embedded in the soft soil of the shoreline; one car upside down, as Lyle had reported. A second one was being attended to by Cutter and the soldiers; the final car was half in, half out of the water, surrounded by a herd of the biggest creatures Lester had ever seen. No photograph, or collection of bones in a museum, could even begin to do justice to the massive sauropods. They were, quite simply, mind-bogglingly huge, standing some eight metres high at the shoulder, and in length, from small head to the tip of the whip-like tail, they spanned maybe thirty metres, with a row of what looked like horny spines running down the neck, back, and tail.

The ones on the water-line were milling around slowly, long necks stretched out to drink. Others, further away, browsed amongst a stand of pine trees. As Lester watched, one reared up, standing on its hind-legs, using the thick part of its tail for balance, and started plucking at the top-most leaves.

A wide smile spread across Sir James Lester’s face, in spite of the horror of the mangled cars, and he started to walk down a gentle slope, following a ripped and broken swathe smashed through the vegetation by the milk tanker before it had come to rest in the soft ground by the lakeshore, leaving behind a row of tyre tracks that had already been baked hard by the sun.

Nick Cutter was on his knees in the dried mud by the middle car, talking to someone, while the soldiers were using cutting equipment, borrowed from the fire-fighters, to try and take the vehicle apart.

He looked up at Lester’s approach and raised his eyebrows questioningly, surprise showing clearly on his face. “Is it fading?” he asked, urgently.

Lester shook his head, and passed on Connor’s message, ending with, “What can I do?”

“Tell us if anything starts to head in this direction. Once we’ve got this lady out, we’re going to try and get a winch onto the lorry.”

At Cutter’s side, Lyle heaved at one side of the car roof, with Stringer at the other, and together, the two men pulled the now-detached piece of crumpled metal away from the mangled body of the car, like taking the top off an egg.

“Couldn’t resist a trip to Jurassic Park, sweetie?” muttered the soldier, with a grin.

“Is it …?”

Lyle nodded. “So the Prof says.”

“With diplodocus and stegosaurus, it’s Jurassic all right,” said Cutter. “OK, Sandra, we’ll have you out of here soon.”

“Where’s Eddie?” quavered the woman. “I want my Eddie.”

“Eddie’s fine,” replied Ditzy, leaning into the car and working a metal jack into place down by her legs. “Just stay still, Sandra. Another five minutes, I promise you, no more.”

In answer to Lester’s questioning look, Cutter stepped back and shook his head, gesturing across to one side of the lake. From that, the civil servant deduced that the trapped woman’s husband was one of the two who had wandered off.

“Stephen and Ryan have gone after them,” the professor muttered. “Stephen found two sets of prints heading off that way. They can’t have gone too far, not in the state they’re likely to be in.”

“They’re had nearly three hours to get thoroughly lost,” said Lester, staring round, helplessly.

Cutter shrugged. “We don’t know that time’s passed at the same rate here, but if it has, Stephen will find them, if anyone can.” Then his eyes flicked towards the water line, where the furthest car was still surrounded by a herd of the enormous creatures, their leathery hides damp in places from the water they were splashing in. “We need to check that one.”

Lyle’s eyes narrowed, weighing up the threat the gigantic beasts posed. “They seem a placid enough bunch, Prof. I reckon I stand a fair chance of getting down there and back without getting stomped on.”

“Too dangerous. If something spooks them, you’ll be trampled.”

“I won’t spook them. We’ve tried waiting, and they haven’t gone anywhere. We need to check the car.”

“There’s been no noise, no movement,” said Cutter.

“So we leave without checking?” Lyle voice was equally quiet, but held a hint of challenge.

Cutter sighed. “You’re a mad bugger, Lyle.”

Lester’s pulse raced, but he forced himself to remain silent. They were on a field operation now, and Lyle was doing his job. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the soldier in action, he just hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

Lyle glanced over at Stringer, eyebrows raised, seeking permission.

The captain nodded. “Take Dane. If there is someone in there, you’ll need help to get them back.”

“Any advice, Prof?”

“Just watch out for their bloody tails.” As Cutter spoke, one of the long tails whipped sideways, landing on the flank of one of its larger companions with an audible crack. The other creature didn’t appear to even register the blow. Cutter winced. “Like I said, watch the tails.”


	4. Chapter 4

Lyle and Dane started to move down the lakeshore, picking their way carefully amongst the huge beasts, like ramblers carefully negotiating a field of monstrously over-sized cows, knowing that a false move could quite possibly have unfortunate consequences.

Lester remembered reading somewhere that something like 40 people in any one year were killed by cows in the United Kingdom, not a thought he found comforting, in the circumstances. He clenched and unclenched his fists, watching the two soldiers, tiny in comparison with the lumbering giants at the water’s edge, draw closer and closer to the wrecked car, lying on its side in the water.

Next to him, Ditzy and Stringer continued to work to free the trapped woman. Cutter carried on talking softly to her, but his eyes remained fixed on the two men, now in the midst of the herd of enormous sauropods. “Easy, boys, easy does it,” he muttered.

A tail swung lazily. Dane dropped down into the mud and the tail swiped harmlessly over his head, then the soldier was up and moving again. A smaller creature, maybe half the size of the one next to it, side-stepped, narrowly avoiding treading on Lyle, then shuffled back into the main body of the herd. The lieutenant simply kept moving.

Lester’s heart rate seemed to double, thumping uncomfortably in his chest. His sharp intake of breath hissed between his teeth and he realised he was running with sweat, and not just as a result of the heat. He’d spent no more than ten minutes in the past and already he felt like he’d aged by as many years.

“Sir, a hand here, please,” said Ditzy, the medic’s voice sounding calm but firm. “When I say ‘go’, both of you take Sandra under the arms and ease her backwards and up out of the seat. Sandra? Listen to me, we’re going to move you now. It’ll probably hurt a bit, but then you’ll be free and we’ll have you out of here. OK, gentlemen, on the count of three ….”

As predicted, Sandra screamed. Lester looked in fear at the giant herd, expecting the noise to have sparked off some kind of panic. One of the diplodocus bent its head to the water and started to drink, but that was all.

“I doubt they’re even conscious of the noise,” said Cutter, as between them they eased the crying, screaming woman out of the car.

“Eddie!” This time her screech was even louder, but again, none of the giants reacted, then, to Lester’s immense relief, the woman fainted.

“Kermit, Blade, get her out of here, now!” barked Ditzy. “And mind her leg, it’s broken below the knee.”

The two young soldiers needed no second urging. An unconscious patient is a tractable patient and, between them, they started to carry her quickly up the ferny slope towards the still-bright anomaly.

“Check the status of that thing with Temple, then get back here,” ordered Joel Stringer. “I want the bodies recovered out of here, the driver removed from the cab and a winch on that lorry in five, lads, so don’t hang about. Professor, does it matter if we leave the cars behind?”

Somewhat to Lester’s surprise, Cutter shook his head. “Better if we can shift them, but it’s not the end of the world if we can’t. Don’t put your men at risk for it, Captain.”

Stringer nodded, then put his hand up to his earpiece. “Ryan, repeat, please? …. OK …. Keep looking, so far as we know it’s still stable. We’ve got the woman out. You’re looking for a guy called Eddie. We don’t know the other one’s name. Report again in five. Over.” He looked over at his audience and nodded. “Hart’s picked up some tracks. Two blokes, by the look of it, heading round the lakeside.”

Down at the water’s edge, Lyle and Dane had finally reached the upturned car and were peering in through the windows.

Stringer’s radio cracked again. “Lyle? What have you got?” A frown creased the soldier’s forehead. “Oh fuck. A woman and a kid?” In the silence that followed, the air suddenly seemed to take on a chill.

Ditzy looked round quickly and was greeted with a sharp shake of the captain’s head. Stringer listened intently, as did the medic, but it was obvious to Lester that the news wasn’t good. Then, right at that moment, even the news that the wrecked car held the body of a dead child suddenly paled into insignificance against the scene that started to unfold in front of them.

One of the giant beasts, on the edge of the herd, raised its head and let out a bellowing noise, like an impossibly loud and off-key trumpet, and then movement started, as legs thicker than tree-trunks began to shuffle, first one way, then another, as the herd suddenly seemed to move en masse. Tails swung, balancing the bodies, with whip-like speed. The tip of one tail smashed into the side of the car, narrowly missing Lyle’s head, and flipped the vehicle back onto four wheels. The soldiers jumped aside, splashing in the shallow waters, caught suddenly in the middle of a herd of mountainous bodies, all starting to move at once.

Huge feet shuffled and stamped. The soldiers ducked first one way, then the other, as one of the massive beasts lumbered ponderously across the mud-flats, blocking the men from view.

Three voices swore as one, with Stringer taking the prize for inventive vulgarity.

A cry of pain split the air, and Lester found himself being restrained by Cutter as he tried to run towards the noise. “They’re calming down again!” said the scientist, holding him back. “Wait, man, wait! No good rushing in. Wait!”

The diplodocus that had blocked their view of events lumbered on down the shore, huge feet trampling the mud as it walked.

The car had been shifted again, flipped onto its roof as though it weighed no more than a child’s toy.

Lester heard Stringer talking urgently into his mouthpiece, but the captain’s words went unheard. All Lester could focus on at that moment was a figure lying sprawled in the mud at the water’s edge, seemingly pinned under the bonnet of the car.

* * * * *

Stephen Hart bent down, examining the ground at his feet, his breathing still slow and even, in spite of the fact that they had been moving quickly through the low-growing ferns, following the obvious trail of broken and trampled fronds.

Ryan scanned the terrain for threats, letting the tracker do his job. If Hart wanted to talk, he’d talk. Until then, Ryan simply let his lover get on with doing what he did best.

Hart nodded to himself, and moved off.

Ryan followed. As far as they could tell, the two men had stayed together. They’d seen the evidence of that in the tracks on the lakeshore, and there had been two distinct sets of footprints in a patch of damp ground a few metres back. He knew Stephen was pushing the pace as fast as he dared in the lush, overgrown landscape, but even so, Ryan felt a growing sense of frustration. Every moment he expected to hear Stringer’s voice in his ear, demanding their return. The hardest thing to face about this damned assignment had been the number of civilian casualties they’d been powerless to prevent, and the thought of leaving anyone behind, millions of years in the past, twisted in his guts like one of Blade’s knives.

A loud rustle in the ferns snapped his attention back to the present. “Hart! There’s something off to the right.”

Stephen stared around him, blue eyes alert. “Eddie?” His voice was low and urgent. “Eddie? We’re here to help.”

“I don’t somehow think his name’s Eddie,” said Ryan, quietly, as a large head reared up out of the undergrowth and a pair of small, dark eyes stared intently at them.

It wasn’t the eyes that claimed the soldier’s attention. That honour went to the human arm clenched between the creature’s bloodstained jaws. Their chances of finding at least one of the men alive seemed to have taken an abrupt down turn.

Ryan brought his rifle up to his shoulder, wondering what his chances were of bringing the animal down with a burst to the head. If that didn’t work, he might at least manage to blind the sod, but before he had a chance to squeeze the trigger, a deep bellow from somewhere behind the creature provided a distraction. It swung its huge head sideways, listening for a moment before turning and heading back into the ferns at a lumbering run.

“Shit,” breathed Stephen as the reality of what they’d just witnessed drove the colour from his face, then reaction hit him and he doubled over, vomiting his breakfast into the nearest fern.

Ryan didn’t blame him. The ragged mess where the arm had clearly been torn from its socket hadn’t done much for his composure, even though he had seen worse on this damned assignment. Before he could offer anything by way of consolation to his obviously shocked lover, his radio cracked into life and he heard Stringer’s voice in his ear demanding a sit rep.

“We’ve narrowed the search to one man,” he replied heavily. “The other’s dead. No, I don’t know which one.” Before he could ask any questions in return, a roar from amongst the ferns split the silence. Ryan jumped sideways, flicking his rifle onto fully automatic as something large and irate lumbered in his direction.

A large grey-green shape burst out of the undergrowth at a run, small arms low to the ground as powerful hind legs carried it forward towards Ryan. A long tail, balancing the body, was held stiffly behind the creature as it ran. A moment later a second animal, almost twice the size, followed the first, bellowing loudly. Ryan went to one knee, rifle at the ready, but the two creatures didn’t even pause in their headlong dash through the ferns.

Stephen cradled the tranquillizer gun in his arms and nodded in the direction the animals had come from. “I have a nasty feeling we’re going to find at least one of them that way. My betting is the smaller ones brought him down, and the big buggers have moved in to claim the carcass. Connor’s convinced they act much the same way as hyenas and lions.”

“Which does the killing?” muttered Ryan, as he came to his feet.

“The hyenas. Anyone who thinks they’re cowardly hasn’t seen them at work.” The tracker nodded his head in the direction the two dinosaurs had run from. “If we’re careful, and stay downwind of the kill site, we might get the chance for a better look.”

Ryan grimaced, but nodded. They couldn’t turn back until they knew for sure whether both men were dead. He thumbed his radio to transmit and muttered, “Stringer, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Give us five minutes. Out.”

With Stephen leading, the two men moved forward as soundlessly as they could contrive, crouching to stay below the level of the ferns, doing their best not to disturb the undergrowth more than they had to. They were led on by noises that sounded like the grunting of a very large pig. The grunting was accompanied by a wet, tearing sound, followed immediately by the snapping of bone. Ryan’s stomach churned.

Stephen went down on one knee and motioned for Ryan to stay back. The tracker swung his rifle over his back and went forward on hands and knees, moving noiselessly through the ferns. Moments later, he wriggled sinuously backwards, shaking his head. He waved a hand to indicate that they needed to retreat.

When they’d put what Stephen judged to be a safe distance between them and the predators, he told Ryan what he’d seen. “Adults and three juveniles. Big theropods of some sort. Both men are dead.” And from the look on his face, it hadn’t been a good sight.

Ryan flicked his radio to transmit. “Stringer? We’re coming back. Both men are dead. I repeat, dead.”

It was Ditzy’s voice who answered him. “Ryan, get back here as fast as you can. We have a problem.”

And from the tone of the normally imperturbably medic’s voice, Ryan knew that the word _problem_ was almost certainly an understatement.


	5. Chapter 5

Joel Stringer grabbled Lester’s arm before he could take so much as a step down the slope towards the scene on the beach. “Yes, I know it’s Lyle, but we wait for the buggers to stop moving! They’ll trample you like an ant if you get under their feet now.”

A tail swung to one side, the enormous creature lashing it to and fro like an angry and over-sized cat. Dane ducked down behind the car, out of sight. One of the larger diplodocus barged into a companion, butting the other with its shoulder. The herd milled again, heads weaving, feet stamping as they all jostled for position, and to his horror, Lester watched another of the massive beasts lift a hind leg and bring it down onto the car, crumpling it further into the mud of the lake shore.

With Jon Lyle still underneath.

“Wait!” Stringer’s voice cut through his mounting panic. “They’re definitely settling down.”

The captain was right. Gradually, the restless movement quieted and some of the herd even bent their long, graceful necks down to the water to drink, including the enormous creature that still stood with his back foot planted squarely on the bonnet of the car.

“I’m going down there,” said Stringer. “Ditz, with me. The rest of you stay back. I mean it, sir,” He shot Lester a pointed stare, “I don’t want to have to worry about you as well as Lyle. Professor, get back up to the tunnel. Fetch me a rope. The chances are we’re going to have to haul that car off him. And tell the lads that my previous orders still stand.”

Cutter nodded and without a word headed up the slope at a run.

Stringer turned back to Lester as he made his way, with Ditzy, down towards the herd. “Sir, something spooked the sods, and I don’t know what. There might be predators about, although Christ knows I don’t want to meet anything that could scare something their size.” He pulled a small pair of binoculars out of a pocket in his equipment vest and tossed them to Lester. “Keep a look out, and yell if you see anything we need to know about.”

Lester nodded, although the first thing he attempted to focus on, unsurprisingly, was the scene down by the shore. At first, all he could see was the enormous grey-green bulk of the diplodocus herd, their skins leathery and wrinkled like the hide of an elephant, then gradually, the images came more sharply into focus and he could just pick out, behind one of the smaller creatures, the metallic blue paintwork of the car, now crushed and broken in the mud of the shoreline.

The huge herbivores blocked any view of Lyle himself, although he could just make out Dane’s shock of wavy black hair as the soldier crouched down beside the car, doing his best not to attract attention to himself.

Lester tore himself reluctantly away from the sight of the wrecked car and followed Stringer’s instructions, panning the area on either side of the herd for any signs of movement. Some distance away, the stegosaurs were still grazing peacefully under the enormous conifers and showed no signs of disturbance, although they were still tightly grouped, with their young in the middle of the herd.

In the other direction, he could make out nothing at all, apart from the forest of ferns, of varying sizes, swaying gently in an on-shore breeze. Occasionally, a tall pine rose up from the sea of fronds, breaking the monotony of the landscape, and in the distance, a long line of hills stood out on the skyline. The lake itself spread out as far as he could see and above it a flock of what looked like birds wheeled above the water. One of Cutter’s lectures came incongruously to mind, and he trained the binoculars on the creatures for a moment.

No, not birds. The things had rounded heads, almost cat-like, with a wingspan of about a metre, and short, thin tails stretched out behind them as they glided on up-draughts, rising and falling gracefully, possibly snatching insects from the air. But whatever they were, they didn’t seem to pose a threat, so Lester continued his sweep of the shoreline, returning again to the activity around the car.

Stringer and Ditzy had reached their objective and were both crouched down beside the car. One of the beasts had shifted, allowing Lester a better view of what was happening. He could see Lyle’s head and shoulders resting on the mud, with more mud streaking the soldier’s face. His eyes were closed, but appeared to be screwed shut against pain, rather than closed with the slackness of death.

Lester exhaled a long, shuddering breath, then a noise from behind him provided a distraction and he turned to see Blade and Kermit hurriedly working to attach the end of a steel hawser to the rear axle of the tanker, and coming past them on the slope was Cutter, with Abby Maitland at his side, both of them carrying lengths of rope.

“What’s happening?” asked Cutter as they halted by his side.

“I don’t know!” Lester tried – and failed – to keep the desperation out of his voice. Acting on impulse, he thrust the binoculars at Abby. “Stringer said keep watch for anything that might spook them. I’m going down there.”

“James …” Cutter held the rope out. “Stringer wanted this. I’m going to attach the other to the cars, we might be able to drag them out along with the lorry.”

Lester nodded, grabbed the rope, and started off down the slope. There were at least five of the diplodocids between him and the other car, but movement in the herd had definitely settled to nothing more than the occasional push and shove as the creatures moved closer to the water.

Mindful of Cutter’s earlier instruction, he kept a weather eye on their tails. The professor had been right, they seemed to be the main danger when the beasts weren’t moving. The air was heavy with a musky smell that reminded him of the elephant house at the zoo, and as he picked his way carefully around the impossibly large animals, he realised he was also skirting piles of steaming dung, looking for all the world like giant cow-pats.

Allowing for two near-misses with tails, he reached the crumpled car without incident and thrust the rope at Stringer.

“He’s alive,” said Ditzy, on his knees in the mud, forestalling the inevitable question. “But both legs are trapped by the car and matey here doesn’t seem to want to move.” He nodded his head at the massive creature.

“Fire a grenade up its arse,” said Lyle, through gritted teeth.

“We might just have to,” muttered Stringer. “I thought I told you to stay back, sir?”

“You wanted a rope,” Lester replied, thrusting it at the captain before dropping to his knees in the mud and putting his hand gently on Lyle’s shoulder. “I thought I told you to take care of yourself, you stupid bastard? You never bloody listen.”

“Sorry,” said Lyle automatically. “But we had to check.”

The huge sauropod towering over Lester and the soldiers shifted its weight slightly and Lyle forced a muddy hand to his mouth, biting sharply down on his own knuckles to muffle a cry of pain.

“Get ready to pull him out if that thing shifts enough for us to move the car,” ordered Stringer.

Lester looked up, suddenly conscious of a slight shift in the dynamic of the herd. Heads raised, dripping water from powerful jaws as the animals looked around, then a shrill whistle made itself heard over the snuffling and blowing from the giants.

“She’s seen something,” said Dane, staring underneath the massive belly of one of the herd and gesturing with his hand to where Abby was keeping watch.

Stringer cursed from where he was trying to secure a rope on the car. “Dane, if you can do it without getting stomped, find out what’s going on.”

Dane whistled though his teeth. “She’s coming down, boss!”

The captain’s head jerked up, “Christ on a bike! It’s not a fucking party down here!”

Moments later, Abby reached them, face flushed with the exertion of weaving her way around and under the diplodocids. “There’s some sort of meat-eater further round the shore, Cutter reckons it might be an allosaurus. They’re big enough to make these guys nervous.”

Stringer muttered something obscene, then spoke quickly into his radio, “Ryan, now would be a good time for some back-up, mate. Predators; between you and us, by the look of it. Any chance you could head ‘em off? We’re a tad busy right now and some help would be good.”

Just as the soldier was speaking, the creature still standing on the car moved again, suddenly swivelling its head round to stare down at the group, as it appeared to notice them for the first time.

“Oh shit,” muttered Dane, swinging his rifle up to his shoulder and thumbing off the safety.

“Don’t shoot,” hissed Abby. “You’re not a tree, it won’t bite you!”

The creature continued to stare at them whilst it made a slow, shuffling movement and finally lifted its hind foot off the car.

While the soldiers watched and waited, Abby grabbed the free end of the rope from Stringer’s hands and darted forward, directly underneath the diplodocus.

“Abby!” Stringer sounded as incredulous as Lester felt.

The diminutive blonde ignored all of them as she quickly and efficiently wound the rope around the massive tree-trunk of a leg, tying off the end, before jumping backwards to admire her handiwork.

“It’s thinking about moving,” she declared.

The huge beasts surrounding them swayed and shuffled and the air was almost immediately alive with the sound of tails smacking into leathery bodies, and heavy squelches as feet pulled out of the thick mud and stamped down again.

The massive head, still staring at Stringer, blew a gusty sigh out of two gaping nostrils, splattering the soldier with mucus, then the animal swung away a ponderous lurch and started to move off.

Ignoring the restless movement all around them, Lester slid his arms underneath Lyle’s shoulders, getting ready to heave the moment the car moved, then he noticed Stringer cock his head slightly, listening to his radio and he heard the captain breathe, quietly, “Fuck.” A second later, the soldier barked, “Abby, Sir James, get back to the anomaly, both of you, Connor says the magnetic field has started to weaken. And they’ve about to start hauling the truck, that might spook these buggers.”

Lester looked up and met the captain’s eyes. “I’m not leaving him.”

“I am not risking getting you stuck here as well, sir!”

“James, get the fuck out of here – all of you!” hissed Lyle, through gritted teeth. “If this thing shifts, I’ll follow you, but leave me a fucking gun, just in case.”

“No way, Jon,” said Lester. “We go back together, or not all.”

Lyle sighed. “Don’t be so melodramatic, darling. Now, kiss me, then fuck off!”

Lester obeyed the first instruction, but disregarded the latter. Seconds later, with a sucking sound, the car started to move. The only trouble was, it wasn’t the only thing on the move. All around them, heads were coming up, weaving in the air, nostrils snuffling in the breeze, and large legs stared to stamp and shuffle as the herd appeared to make a collective decision to move.

“We need fire!” declared Abby, eyes wide and afraid, but the girl still held her ground. “Joel - flares - have you got distress flares?”

Stringer’s eyes widened even as he scrabbled with his hands at the pockets of his equipment vest. A grin was forming on the captain’s face as he pulled out a short tube, no more than six inches long and twisted the end. A beam of bright red light shot out of the end.

“Shine it at their faces!” commanded Abby, urgently. “If you can get them to turn their heads they might avoid us!”

“Here’s hoping …” said Stringer, as he raised his arm above his head and started slowly waving his arm from side to side, sweeping the intense laser light in a wide arc.

The nearest of the diplodocids jerked its head sharply to one side. Behind it, one of its fellows lumbered against it and let out a rumbling bellow, sounding like an irate bull. Stringer angled the light again and kept it moving. The beasts blinked and moved apart, as though pushed aside by the strobe effect of the light in front of their eyes. Shaking their heads, the two nearest members of the herd moved on past the small group crouched in the mud of the lakeshore.

Hardly daring to breathe, Lester braced himself, ready to do his best to haul Lyle free of the car. Ditzy took up station next to him. Lester spared a quick glance over his shoulder, enough to enable him to know that Abby’s plan appeared to stand a chance of success. The huge creatures were avoiding the light, and provided they didn’t stampede, it looked very much like the rest of them might avoid being trampled.

Dane jumped to his feet and brought out another flare, taking up station a few metres away from his captain.

“Ryan? Yeah, it’s us,” Stringer spoke urgently into his throat mike. “They don’t like the light. They’re avoiding us. Just make fucking sure you pick off any predators that get too close. We don’t want a fucking stampede. If they move too fast, we don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance. And get ready to get the fuck out of here. Temple says the anomaly is weakening. Out.”

With a final sucking heave, the car came free of the mud, dragged over after the slowly moving bulk of the sauropod, the rope now pulled taut, but apparently able to take the strain. The sight of two bodies, one large, one small, jerking like marionettes in the wreckage, still held in place by seat-belts, made bile rise in Lester’s throat, even as his lover came free of the mud.

Ditzy crouched down at Lyle’s side, demanding urgently, “Jon, can you feel your legs?”

White-faced from pain, the lieutenant nodded, his breath hissing between his teeth as he answered, “Yeah, I don’t think anything’s broken. It just squashed me down in the mud.”

“Good,” acknowledged the medic. “Let’s get you up.”

Between Lester and Ditzy, they hauled Lyle to his feet. The soldier promptly gave a loud yelp as his right leg gave way under him.

“Not so good,” said Ditzy grimly, grabbing one of Lyle’s arms and heaving him up again. “Boss, what are the chances of making a break for it?” he asked, shooting a glance at his captain.

“Ryan, how many more of the buggers need to get past us?” demanded Stringer, still sweeping his arm from side to side as the massive sauropods continued to break to either side of them, like a river flowing around a rock.

* * * * *

“Half the herd still to go,” replied Ryan, watching the progress of the diplodocids, while Stephen kept watch on the pair of allosaurs, who were in turn keeping watch on the slow-moving herbivores.

The smaller of the two predators took a step forward, its head swinging from side to side as it scented the air.

Beside him Ryan heard the movement of the bolt action which told him Stephen was getting ready to fire the tranq gun. The crack of the rifle sounded loudly, and the soldier heard a muttered, “Got you!”

“Will it take it down?” asked Ryan, urgently. “They’ve still got to get Lyle off the beach and up the slope and they’re gonna look too much like a tasty snack to those sods, for my liking.”

Stephen clicked another bolt into place and took careful aim. “I’ve used the highest dose I’ve got. If it doesn’t take ‘em out, it might at least slow the fuckers down.”

Ryan nodded and watched with bated breath while Stephen slowly and carefully squeezed the trigger.

The second dart flew as true as the first, striking the largest of the two creatures in the neck.

Ryan leaned down and slapped Stephen on the shoulder. “Nice work. Come on, let’s get closer to the others. It looks like we might not have too much longer.”

Together, the two men jogged back along the shoreline, keeping watch on the two allosaurs, making their way to the spot where the milk tanker was now being hauled, slowly but steadily, back to the anomaly.

The arching light of the laser flares continued to weave steadily through the air. Ryan knew from previous experience of using the latest model in distress flares that what the creatures down on the beach would be seeing, every time the wide, fanned beams crossed their vision, was a bright pulse of light. The flares had a range of between two to three miles in daylight, and close up, the way Stringer and Dane were using them, the effects would be dramatic.

No animals liked bright lights in their eyes, and the diplodocus herd were no exception.

The allosaurs were still hanging back, possibly also wary of the light, and for the space of a few minutes, Ryan actually thought the predators wouldn’t give them any trouble, then, without warning, the scene on the beach stated to go to hell in a handbasket. Without warning, the larger of the two predators let out a bellow, and started up the shore at a lumbering run, heading towards a smaller diplodocus which had lagged back, behind the herd. The temptation of what it saw as being easy prey was obviously too much for the meat-eater.

Ryan swore, and went for a head shot. He succeeded, but unfortunately the bullet did no more than punch a hole in the creature’s teeth. It bellowed in surprise and kept on moving.

“Stringer, get the fuck out of there if you can!”

A second shot came from Ryan’s left, and he saw Kermit, down on one knee on the slope, with Blade taking up station beside him. Red blood flowered in the allosaur’s shoulder as the predator made a vicious lunge forward and sunk its powerful jaws into the flank of the unfortunate straggler. The juvenile diplodocus let out a bellow of fear and, in front of it, one of the adults swung its head around, seeking out the source of the distress call, while the remainder of the herd ploughed steadily onwards.

Above them, the tanker started to disappear through the flickering light of the anomaly, with the wreckage of the other car jerking after it up the slope, like a children’s toy being towed in its wake.

Down on the lakeshore, Ryan saw Abby’s bright blonde hair appear in the midst of the herd as the girl weaved her way, as elegantly as a dancer, through the forest of shuffling legs. Behind her, at a slower pace, still being protected by the light of the flares, came Ditzy and Lester, supporting Lyle’s weight between them. The lieutenant was limping heavily off his left leg, clearly unable to support himself unaided.

“They’re going to make it!” said Stephen, lining up for a second shot at one of the predators.

A grin started to form on Ryan’s face, only to be wiped out abruptly by a scream from Abby. The girl had come to an halt, and was pointing up the slope, a look of horror on her face. Ryan turned round and watched, speechless with shock, as a tide of white fluid poured out of the tanker, which had just been severed neatly in half by the closure of the anomaly.


	6. Chapter 6

“Jon, keep moving!” panted Lester, struggling under his lover’s weight.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Lyle’s voice was ragged with shock as Abby’s scream alerted the rest of the group to what had happened.

Stringer spared a brief glance up at the tanker and then snapped, in a voice which had carried easily across numerous parade grounds, “Keep moving!” And move they did, even though their hope of escape had now winked out of existence, leaving nothing behind but a faint shimmer in the air and a growing pool of milk on the ground.

Minutes later, they were all grouped next to the tanker, with Dane, Kermit and Blade forming a defensive half-circle around the group as, down on the shore, the two allosaurs were now concentrating their efforts on their attempts to bring down the young diplodocus.

Stringer stared up at the neatly severed metal of the tanker’s sides and declared, “That’s us right royally fucked.”

Ryan stared at his fellow captain and nodded grimly. “Where’s the Professor?”

“He went through to check with Temple how long he thought we had,” answered Blade, the soldier’s voice as calm and steady as ever, reminding Ryan that this wasn’t the first time the man had been stuck in the past. “I guess we’ve got the answer now.”

And it wasn’t an answer that any of them had wanted to get, but it looked very much like they were stuck with it.

James Lester looked round the shocked group, taking in expressions varying from horrified to resigned, and dropped a hand to his lover’s shoulder.

“If any of you think I’m sanctioning overtime payments, then you’re very much mistaken.”

* * * * *

Two hours later, the herd of diplodocus had finally moved out of sight along the lakeshore. The two allosaurs had been foiled in their attempt to bring down the juvenile by a protective, and extremely large, adult, and the predators had contented themselves with prowling menacingly behind the herd, clearly affected enough now by the tranquilizer from Stephen’s darts to have slowed them down, but not enough to make them give up the hunt.

Lester was sitting with his back to the front of the tanker, Lyle’s head resting on his shoulder. Ditzy had strapped the lieutenant’s ankle up tightly, pronouncing it badly sprained rather than broken. He’d had to take slightly more dramatic action on Lyle’s right knee, which had been dislocated by the weight of the car. Lester had held his lover’s hand tightly while Ditzy had slid the kneecap back into place. Lyle had gripped his fingers hard enough to bruise, but hadn’t uttered a sound. Painkillers appeared to have helped a little, but the soldier was still hollow-eyed and pale under his tan.

Ryan and Stringer had expressly forbidden anyone to leave the group. The remains of the tanker gave them some measure of protection at their backs, which was better than nothing in what was now an entirely hostile world. The cab had been picked clean of anything useful, including a six pack of cola and a melted chocolate bar, which Ditzy had insisted on Lyle eating. The soldier had grumbled, but it had brought a small amount of colour back into his face, for which Lester had been grateful.

For what seemed like the millionth time since the anomaly had closed, Lester checked his watch. It had opened after three hours, the last time, but now, three hours came and went, leaving a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, which the small group studiously ignored.

The heat was fading now, as clouds drifted lazily over the sun.

With the diplodocus herd and the allosaurs gone, smaller creatures ventured out of the undergrowth, making their way down to the lake to drink. Small, agile animals, no more than a metre tall, with long necks and tails, skin banded yellow and green. Meat-eaters or herbivores, it was impossible to tell, and Lester simply hoped they didn’t find out the hard way. Stephen didn’t have Connor’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the creatures and had simply counselled caution.

Eventually, it was the turn of the stegosaurus herd to meander down to the water, the massive plates on their back standing upright, displaying a mix of colours in reds, yellows and browns.

By now, Lester was watching with a calm detachment that surprised him. He thought back to the soldier’s suggestion that he should take a trip back in time almost with amusement. If he’d known what he knew now, would he still have come? Strangely, the answer appeared to be yes. He was seeing creatures that had last walked the earth longer ago than he could even begin to imagine, seeing sights that he’d never in his life thought to see, and even as the sun started to sink slowly down over the horizon and the first pangs of hunger started to make themselves felt, he felt strangely exhilarated.

He looked down at where Lyle’s head rested on his chest and reached up to brush the hair back from his lover’s forehead. Lyle looked up, his hazel eyes questioning.

Heedless of their companions, Lester leaned down and pressed a light kiss onto the other man’s lips. “Did you really think I’d bugger off and leave you?”

Lyle smiled. “No, you’re too bloody stubborn for that.”

Lester smiled and rested his head against Lyle’s. “I’d prefer to know what’s happening, rather that torment myself with guesses. I’m sure we can rely on the ever-resourceful Mr Temple to think of something useful to do and in the meantime, I intend to make the most of what is, quite probably, the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen.”

“You’re a bloody romantic at heart,” chuckled Lyle.

James Lester swatted his lover lightly on the head, but didn’t deny the charge.

To one side of the group, he could see Ryan and Stringer talking in low voices, clearly debating what to do next. He knew their priorities had to be shelter and food, he’d been graced by the presence of a Special Forces boyfriend long enough to be aware of the basics, but if he was reading the situation correctly, even the two captains had been – consciously or unconsciously – pinning their hopes on the anomaly re-opening within a relatively short space of time.

The idea of being stranded irretrievably in the past was simply too big a concept to get to grips with and so, like the others, Lester just pushed the thought to one side. He wondered how long it would take for that course of action to become untenable.

The air remained warm, in spite of the loss of the sun over the horizon. They had shared out what they had by way of food and drink, which had consisted of the ration bars the soldiers carried with them, and Ryan had sanctioned a trip to the lakeside to collect water in the cola cans, but that had been all.

There had been little or nothing by way of conversation.

To his surprise, Lester had even managed to get some sleep. He’d been woken eventually by the need to empty his bladder, just as the last of the light was fading, with an abruptness which made Lester wonder where they were in relation to the equator. Lyle had muttered about needing to take a piss as well, and he’d helped his lover limp around the tanker, making their way no more than a few feet into the vegetation. Ryan had been most emphatic about not going out of sight, no matter what the reason.

A rustle in the undergrowth made Lyle reach for his pistol, but whatever it was scurried away without venturing any closer.

“I never did like camping,” Lester remarked, as they made their way back to the others.

“It’s warmer than the Brecon Beacons,” commented Lyle. “Look on the bright side.”

“Must we?” sighed Lester, theatrically. “I was rather hoping for a good old-fashioned whinge, but I suppose that would be considered unmanly.”

He felt the warm breath of Lyle’s laughter against his cheek as his lover slid an arm round his waist. “We’d better save the whinging for when things have really buggered up, sweetie,” the soldier told him. “Now get some sleep.”

* * * * *

The sound of gunfire brought Lester awake in the space of a heartbeat. For a second, his brain struggled to come to grips with reality. Then memory crashed back with the force of a tidal wave.

“We’ve got company!” shouted Ryan. “Sir James, Miss Maitland, get inside the cab! It’s the most defensible thing we’ve got.”

At Lester’s side, he heard the click of the safety coming off Lyle’s rifle, and a grunt of pain as the soldier hauled himself to his feet, then a bellow from something large and almost certainly unfriendly sounded from the edge of the forest of ferns.

Knowing it wasn’t the time or the place to dispute an order, Lester pulled himself up into the cab and held down a hand to help Abby as the girl swarmed up beside him. The pair of them had already been armed with pistols at Ryan’s insistence, and he knew Abby was perfectly proficient with hers. He was less certain of his own skills in that area. Something he resolved to ask Lyle to remedy, when – if – they found a way out of their current predicament.

The beams from the soldiers’ rifle-mounted torches cut through the darkness, illuminating the source of the noise. The creature stood half a body length taller than the soldiers, with the all-too-familiar powerful jaws of a meat-eater, set in a head as long as a man’s arm. It was more lightly built than the allosaurs which had menaced the diplodocus herd, and had the large eyes of something which hunted by night.

The seven soldiers and Stephen Hart had taken up a defensive stand close to the remains of the tanker. Stringer was doing his best to repeat the trick with the laser flare, with some success, and for a moment, Lester thought the creatures were going to slink back into the ferns, but then an even larger animal barrelled its way past the others, lunging forward, impervious to the sudden burst of automatic weapons fire. Lester heard a cry of pain, and the flare fell to the ground, trampled under the powerful hind legs of the predator.

Beside him, Abby stiffened, “Joel!”

Before she had a chance to try and clamber down from the cab, Lester had his hand on her arm. “Abby, no! Let them handle it!”

Below them was a scene of rapidly unfolding chaos. The charge had scattered the soldiers into the darkness, making it impossibly dangerous to fire at anything other than extremely close quarters without running the risk of hitting their comrades. Torch beams jerked in the darkness and from what Lester could make out, at least half a dozen of the creatures had hurled themselves into the fray.

“We should have had one of the flares!” Abbey’s voice was brittle with fear.

She was right. Lester leaned out of the broken window and yelled into the darkness, doing his best to make himself heard above the bellows of the predators and the noise of gun fire, “Flares! Someone get me a flare!”

At first he thought his words had gone unheard then, from below, Ryan’s voice answered, with the single word, “Catch!”

Something clattered on the floor of the cab and Lester scrabbled on the floor at their feet, bringing up something closely resembling a relay race baton.

“Twist the base!” Abby commanded, urgently.

Then the red beam of the laser illuminated the inside of the cab.

From below him, Lester hear Ryan’s yell of, “Face outwards!”

That was all he needed to know. Feeling rather incongruously like a kid playing at being Darth Vader, he swept the beam from side to side, the way he’d seen Stringer do earlier. A second cry of pain sent a jolt of fear up his spine. They were taking casualties and their attackers showed no signs of backing off.

He could feel Abby’s small body pressed up against his side, her breathing quick and irregular, and the realisation dawned that he wasn’t the only one with a soldier for a lover.

“They’ll make it,” he muttered, wondering whether he was trying to convince her or reassure himself.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the attack ended, and in the bright red laser light, he saw the creatures backing off, shaking their heads as though blinded by the light. A surge of adrenaline washed through him as he continued to target their eyes with the beam. It was working, it was fucking working!

Lester could hear harsh, laboured breathing in the darkness as the soldiers regrouped. Ryan’s voice, calm and authoritative, demanded a roll-call. At his side, Abby tensed, waiting for Stringer’s reply when Ryan called his name. Her body started to shake in the silence that followed.

The voice that answered was Ditzy’s. “He’s unconscious,” said the medic. “Someone give me a hand here.”

The roll call continued. The only one who didn’t answer was Dane. After an uncomfortable silence, they heard Stephen announce, “I’ve got a pulse, but he’s bleeding. Ditz!”

The medic swore violently and started rapidly giving orders.

In the absence of any directed at him, Lester simply continued to flash the laser beam into the darkness, over the soldier’s heads, simply grateful beyond measure that Lyle had spoken his own name in the hastily conducted head-count.

“I’m going down,” announced Abby, and without waiting for an answer, the girl scrambled past him, dropping lightly down onto the trampled ground.

He scanned the darkness as best he could, sweeping the beam from side to side. It didn’t provide light the way a torch did, but he could tell when the laser light hit one of the predators, the flash reflected back from their eyes. They’d retreated a little way along the shore and appeared to be bending down to tear at something on the ground. It looked like their desire for food was being satisfied by one of their own number. A shiver hit him as he realised how close they’d come to one of their own being the victim.

Lester was concentrating so hard on the task of keeping the laser trained on the predators busily feasting on one of their own that he almost missed the first scrape of claw on metal from behind him, but then it came again, followed by a low, snuffling sound.

He turned his head, staring out of the other shattered window, to find two very large and unblinking eyes staring straight back at him. His heart made a very creditable attempt to leave his body via his throat as he watched the creature poke its jaws through the empty space where the window had once been, blocking out the faint, grey light that had been seeping in from that side.

Lester was close enough to smell the sickly sweet odour of fresh blood on the beast’s breath and to hear the spluttering of mucus in its nostrils as it sniffed the air. Some long-forgotten nature programme came incongruously back to mind, with Sir David Attenborough talking about how animals which hunted at dusk and dawn relied on their sense of smell. He was all too aware of the fact that it wouldn’t take a specialised sense of smell to detect the reek of sweat and fear that he was no doubt giving off.

He struggled against the natural desire to scream. If he yelled, or moved, it could almost certainly reach him before he could even try and scramble out of the other door. His right arm still held the laser flare out of the other window. He had no idea how the hell he could attract anyone’s attention without attracting unwelcome attention somewhat closer to home, so he did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances and dropped the flare.

A sudden yell of, “It’s opened!” came from outside the cab, making him jump in shock as hope suddenly flared as brightly as the laser had done a moment ago.

The creature lunged forwards, jaws snapping no more than an inch from his nose. Fetid breath gusted over him, and saliva splashed on his face, hot and rank.

His yelp of horror was lost in the ragged cheer that had gone up from the soldiers. The anomaly had re-opened and he was about to get his head bitten off by one of the star attractions in Jurassic Park. Great, just fucking great! He plastered himself as far back against the door of the cab as he could get, praying it was far enough.

It lunged again, but this time its head slammed against the top of the metal surround of the window, bringing it up short. A bellow of frustration followed its abortive attempt to embed its fangs in Lester’s face. Outside the cab, the cheering suddenly fell silent. The creature roared again, covering him in droplets of snot and blood.

Behind him, Lester heard hands scrabbling at the door of the cab, attempting to yank it open, but Lyle’s unmistakeable cursing told him that it remained obstinately stuck. A second lunge forward saw the metal surround of the window start to buckle, and this time he felt the actual brush of a fang against his face.

The staccato rattle of automatic fire filled the air. The huge head jerked, but didn’t withdraw. The creature was too intent on its prey to even register the bullets tearing into its flesh.

Lester twisted in the seat and tried to jack-knife out of the window, feeling broken glass tear at his stomach. His legs thrashed wildly and he felt teeth graze his ankle. Expecting any moment to feel teeth in his flesh and to be dragged backwards, he felt strong arms grab his as he was heaved out, to tumble in a heap onto the soft ground. A pain-filled roar followed him, rapidly drowned out by rifle fire.

Hand grabbed him under the arms and hitched him up and he heard a voice he recognised as Kermit’s say, “Come on, sir, time to go!”

With an arm round the young soldier’s waist he limped up the slope toward an anomaly that flickered and shone like a beacon. He could see one of the soldiers being half-carried, half-dragged through it, then they disappeared from view, lurching through the break in time. He could hear Ryan’s voice, still shouting orders, and Ditzy demanding assistance.

He hesitated, pulling back from Kermit, scanning the chaos on the slope for any sign of Lyle. The grey light of dawn had replaced the darkness that had prevailed even a few minutes ago. He watched Ditzy and Abby stagger towards them, struggling with Stringer’s weight. Stephen appeared and bent down to assist Abby, grabbing the man’s feet to help the diminutive but determined girl.

A final burst of rifle fire sounded from close at hand. He saw Ryan and Blade, supporting Lyle between them, coming up the slope towards him.

“Don’t just stand there, James!” yelled Lyle, limping heavily. “Ryan, I’m OK, do a sweep for the rest, it’s fucking bedlam here!”

Lester closed the gap between him and his lover as Ryan broke away, scanning the ground with the beam on his torch, doing a rapid and no doubt impossibly difficult job of checking that his men and their civilian charges had made it to safety.

As he hitched one of Lyle’s arms around his shoulders, another rifle shot echoed out in the silence, muffled by distance.

“What the fuck?” Blade’s head whipped round, green eyes scanning around him. “Boss, that wasn’t one of ours!”

Ryan came to a halt next to them. “I know.” He pointed out across the lakeshore to where the long line of hills in the distance stretched darkly in the dawn light. “There was a muzzle flash over there.”

The four men hesitated, then Cutter’s voice, urging them to hurry, galvanised them back into action and, without needing any further urging, they struggled the rest of the way up the slope and hurled themselves breathlessly back into the present.

It still smelt of a mixture of petrol and oil.

They were back in the Brynglas Tunnel.


	7. Chapter 7

Lester leant against the side of his car, still breathing deeply, enjoying air that smelt, and tasted, of the twenty-first century. Even the exhaust fumes from the two enormous generators positioned outside the tunnel smelled welcome just then.

Lyle limped heavily in his direction, brushing off an offer of assistance from a paramedic with the words, “I’m fine.”

The man looked sceptical but didn’t debate the issue, which was probably wise.

“What’s the prognosis?” He’d seen Lyle talking to Ditzy before the medic had left in one of the ambulances.

“Stringer’s arm is broken in two places. It took a bloody great big lump out of him and he’s lost a lot of blood, but Ditz reckons they’ll get him patched up OK. Dane’s got a cracked skull and he’s still unconscious. He’s also got a couple of nasty bites, but again, nothing they can’t fix, hopefully. It could have been a lot worse.”

Lyle’s hazel eyes met his and the soldier pulled him into a quick hug. Lester didn’t protest, allowing himself a momentary respite from what seemed to be an unceasing buzz of activity around the mouth of the tunnel.

“Looks like Mr Temple’s managed to earn his keep,” he commented, talking directly into the warm, sweat-sheened skin of Lyle’s neck.

“Did you manage to find out what he actually did?” Lyle asked, letting out a long breath. “All I heard was a load of techno-babble coupled with more than the usual amount of arm waving.”

“Apparently, he got Ms Brown to commandeer those two generators off the Coal Authority and then he proceeded to produce what the Professor described as a ‘bloody great big magnetic field’. God knows what he actually did, but I’m reliably informed it worked on the same principle as jump starting a car.”

Lyle’s shoulders started to shake with silent laughter. “I didn’t realise Connor knew anything about cars.”

“I don’t think he does, but I’m told he sometimes gets pressed into assistance helping Miss Maitland with hers. I rather think, on this occasion the boy has surpassed himself. I may have to rethink my position on overtime. However, I might just wait until I see if he has done any irreversible damage to that machinery before making a final decision.”

“You’re all heart, sweetie.”

Lester nodded, his arms tightening around Lyle. “So I’ve been told.”

A Scottish sounding cough made the two men reluctantly draw apart. “Connor wants to try and bring it back again in another hour or so,” announced Cutter, without preamble.

Lester arched an eyebrow. “You’ve heard about the other rifle shot, I take it?”

“Aye, but that’s not the reason.”

The eyebrow raised itself up another fraction.

“We need to know how long we can manage to keep calling them back.”

“Practice on the Permian Anomaly, Professor, it doesn’t involve the closure of a motorway.”

“We already have the kit set up here. It’s important, James. We might need to do this again sometime and it could save lives. It did save yours.”

Lester sighed. “Speak to Miss Brown. Tell her you have five hours, maximum. I repeat, five hours, no more. I have no desire to debate the continued closure of the M4 with the Department of Transport beyond tonight. For now, we probably have nothing more to contend with than a few harassed and undoubtedly underpaid employees of the Highways Agency, or whatever the hell they call it over here. But tomorrow we will have Welsh-speaking bureaucrats coming out of our ears. Five hours, Cutter.”

With a broad grin, Nick Cutter went off in search of Claudia Brown.

* * * * *

Four hours later, a ragged group of exhausted soldiers and scientists gathered for what Connor had promised was the third and final time. On his second attempt at jump-starting the anomaly they had been successful in hauling out the remaining half of the milk tanker and the two cars.

Ryan had hoped against hope that Connor could keep the anomaly open long enough to enable them to search for the car which still contained the bodies of a woman and child, but Lester had very firmly vetoed any such attempt, reasoning that they had no idea where the car and its unfortunate occupants had ended up. For all they knew, as he pointed out, the wreckage was still attached to the leg of the huge sauropod.

Ryan knew that the civil servant was right, but the decision still went against the grain.

“It’s opening!” Connor’s shout echoed round the tunnel.

The soldiers all shouldered their rifles, holding them tightly against the pull being exerted by both the anomaly and Connor’s magnetic field generator. Much to everyone else’s amusement, Kermit had already managed to lose one.

The anomaly flickered once, twice, three times and then died.

Connor cursed and promptly started to flip an array of switches on his make-shift control panel. The anomaly winked back into existence and this time remained steady. The student’s yell of triumph was infectious, and Ryan found himself sharing his excitement. If they could find a way of making this work elsewhere, it might finally give them some sort of control over the bloody things. Control that might save more lives.

Ryan’s thoughts went back to the dreadful ten days when he had believed Stephen to have been irretrievably lost in the past. That was not something he wanted to relive – ever. Unconsciously, his hand reached out and brushed Stephen’s.

“Ten minutes and still holding strong!” Connor announced, proudly. “Are we going to take a look, Professor? We need to check it’s still at the same time and place.”

Cutter stepped forward.

Ryan grabbed his shoulder. “Me and my lads go through first, Professor.”

“It’s a quick look, nothing more, man.”

“I know you and your quick looks, sir,” commented Ryan ruefully.

“Ryan’s right, Cutter,” said Lester, briskly. “You have five minutes, Captain. You then have my full permission to engineer the professor’s return by whatever means you deem expedient.”

“I think that’s a long-winded way of saying you can thump me again,” sighed Cutter. “It won’t be necessary. Come on, Ryan,”

Without a backward glance, Cutter walked up to the anomaly and stepped through, Ryan at his shoulder.

At a quick nod from Lyle, Blade and Finn followed their captain.

Ryan stared out at a familiar landscape. The ferns on the gentle slope down towards the lake shore were battered and broken, crushed by the tanker and mangled further by its retrieval.

The mud by the waterside still showed the tracks of numerous sauropods, but for once, the scene was devoid of animal life.

But it was not the prints in the soft mud that drew Ryan’s attention, or anyone else’s.

At his side, Cutter sucked in a sharp breath and behind him he heard Blade mutter, “Oh fuck.”

Crossing the grey mud-flats of the shoreline was another set of tracks.

The tracks of a wheeled vehicle; two distinct lines of wheel ruts, cutting across all other tracks left by man and beast, standing out in start contrast to the other prints in the mud, broadcasting their difference for all to see in the grey light of a Jurassic dawn.

Oh fuck was right.


End file.
